Читать онлайн «The Lost Man»
Автор Джейн Харпер
About
Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outback Queensland.
They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last chance for their middle brother, Cameron.
The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects . . .
For readers who loved
Praise for Jane Harper
‘Harper has harnessed what captivates the Australian psyche – the landscape’
‘The most exciting emerging novelist of the last 12 months... places Harper in the elevated company of the authors she so admires... Gillian Flynn and Lee Child’
‘A major voice in contemporary fiction . . . an astonishing writer’ A. J.
Finn author of‘A storytelling force to be reckoned with’
Contents
Cover
About The Lost Man
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Acknowledgements
About Jane Harper
Also by Jane Harper
Praise for Jane Harper
The Dry extract
Copyright page
Prologue
From above, from a distance, the marks in the dust formed a tight circle. The circle was far from perfect, with a distorted edge that grew thick, then thin and broke completely in places. It also wasn’t empty.
In the centre was a headstone, blasted smooth by a hundred-year assault from sand, wind and sun. The headstone stood a metre tall and was still perfectly straight. It faced west, towards the desert, which was unusual out there. West was rarely anyone’s first choice.
The name of the man buried beneath had long since vanished and the landmark was known to locals – all sixty-five of them, plus 100,000 head of cattle – simply as the stockman’s grave. That piece of land had never been a cemetery; the stockman had been put into the ground where he had died, and in more than a century no-one had joined him.
If a visitor were to run their hands over the worn stone, a partial date could be detected in the indentations. A one and an eight and a nine, maybe – 1890-something. Only three words were still visible. They had been carved lower down, where they had better shelter from the elements. Or perhaps they had been chiselled more deeply to start with; the message deemed more important than the man. They read:
